


debt

by PhoenixAccio



Category: Metal Gear
Genre: (mentioned but not used), Alaska, Autistic Solid Snake, Coping, Gen, Guilt, Guns, Identity Issues, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Nightmares, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Suicidal Thoughts, having your dad's face and then killing your dad makes for some pretty unpleasant ptsd, it sounds worse than it is i promise it isnt actually this depressing, pre-MGS1, snake has Issues. we know this, typical snake clone angst you know the drill
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-16
Updated: 2020-12-16
Packaged: 2021-03-10 22:28:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 943
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28114653
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PhoenixAccio/pseuds/PhoenixAccio
Summary: Sometimes Snake needs to lose himself for a bit, just to keep himself going. The dogs help.
Comments: 1
Kudos: 14





	debt

Sometimes the nightmares get so bad Snake can't sleep. Sometimes, even awake, all Snake sees in the mirror, in the stainless steel coffee pot, in the reflection in his drink, is his father's face as he burned. As Snake burned him. 

Sometimes Snake doesn't trust himself not to do it again. 

On nights like those, when he can't even drink himself back into sleep for fear the potential for flames would be too tempting in his hand, Snake seeks comfort from the only family he' ever trusted, and the ones he knows (hopes) trust him back. 

Sighing, pointedly leaving his gun on the coffee table, Snake pulls himself up from the couch and dresses for cold, and Snake goes to sleep with the dogs. 

The smell is familiar when the door opens, warm air rushing out to form equilibium, trying its best to heat everything in the world outside its box. Snake closes the door. The warm air will have to try again some other day. Snake still needs it now, and his pack does too. Snake slips off his coat and boots, putting them in their place by the door. 

Faucet is at the fence waiting, maybe woken by Snake's smell. Snake steps towards him in sock-feet, and Faucet's tail wags as he lets out that rusty little whine that helped name him. Normally, it makes Snake smile, but tonight Snake is too tired to feel anything much but sad. Guilty, too, if he lets himself be, but Snake tries not to as a rule. No need dwelling over crimes he has convicted himself for already. He is atoning already, at night, and every day he denies himself social contact. Protecting the world from the Legendary Solid Snake. 

He opens the gate and slips into the run proper, rests his hand at Faucet's scruff as they walk together back to the tangle of sleeping dog that was the rest of their pack. The blankets are for the dogs, the floor is cold at night, at least for sleep, but there is space for Snake to lay down there so he does. 

As Snake settles on the ground, Bowie, a heterochromatic merle-coat Miller rescued, awakened by the movement, leans sleepily over to lick Snake's face. 

"Yeah, hi," Snake murmurs, giving Bowie's side an obliging pat. Faucet is curled against Snake's back now as if this is a nightly occurrence, and Bowie shifts to rest across Snake's chest. The fur is warm, and Bowie is a comfortable deep pressure against him. Despite everything, Snake _is_ calming down. He doesn't know why it always comes as such a surprise. 

He's always felt uncomfortable around people, Snake thinks as he lays surrounded by his team, his _pack._ He's never sure what to do with them, with complicated human wants and needs and _emotions_ and all the suffocating weight of normal social interaction from a man who was never quite taught how. 

Dogs are easier. Dogs are simple. Dogs want food, water, exercise, friends. Dogs want things Snake can provide, have problems he can solve. Dogs are a lot like him. 

Dogs get a bad rap sometimes, for doing as they've been trained. Snake likes to pretend, sometimes, that things are as simple for him. 

He knows they aren't, but sometimes it's nice to pretend the burden he carries is not entirely of his own making. 

It makes sense, Snake thinks, the animal name, for a man who cannot quite fake his way human. It's cowardly, Snake knows, to hide from the weight of his sins by fancying himself just another dog like his pack, but Snake needs to be a coward sometimes. To manage all those times when he needs to be himself. 

He tells himself this, and for tonight he lets himself believe it. The fur and the weight and the warmth of the closest thing he'd ever had to family were what he needed right now, to keep him alive. Snake can never fully atone for the choices he's made, but to allow himself coward's way out would be a betrayal to all those who did not deserve that refusal to try. 

Snake can continue to repent in the morning. For the moment, what Snake needs is sleep, with the creatures he saved. Who never knew his father's face on anyone but Snake. Who would know his smell apart from anyone else in the world, his appearance, for once, irrelevant. 

Snake falls alseep among his pack, and allows himself to be one of them, or close enough to it, for just one night. One night where just being warm, and there, and _him_ could be enough. 

-

Snake extracts himself carefully from among his dogs in the morning, having shifted gradually towards the middle in his sleep. He slips his boots and coat back on, refills the dogs' water, and returns to his empty cabin and the sickening awareness of the loaded handgun on the table. After a moment, Snake sighs, rubbing his hand across his face. Through his hair. 

Snake calls Master Miller. Snake lets himself be watched, until he is okay enough again to keep that watch himself. Snake keeps himself around to atone. 

Snake can never atone, he knows that much, but he will try nonetheless, and keep trying until the end really does stop being his choice. If the world really can be bought and sold, Snake owes an impossible debt. 

Snake will repay that debt if (until) it kills him, and if there is anything after that, Snake will repay it there as well. 

It will never be enough, but it's all that Snake can do, and so he does.


End file.
